The world’s tallest nation has stopped growing taller: the height of Dutch children from 1955 to 2009

Schönbeck, Yvonne; Talma, Henk; Dommelen, Paula van; Bakker, Boudewijn; Buitendijk, S.E.; Hirasing, R.A.; Buuren, Stef van

doi:10.1038/pr.2012.189

Cited by 215 publications

(212 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The Dutch are recognized as the tallest nation, and their secular increase in height has recently stopped (Schönbeck et al, 2013). Figure 3 of Schönbeck et al (2013) shows how height in The Netherlands has increased since 1955, equivalent to Figure 4 of the current article. The adult increment amounted to 7 cm in both sexes, but the pattern by age was quite different from Figure 4.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The increment increased linearly from birth to 15 years in boys and 11 years in girls, when the increments were respectively 10 and 8 cm, after which they fell back to 7 cm at age 20; so there was no infant increment at all. However, the Dutch in 1955 were already taller (175 and 164 cm by sex) than the South Koreans were in 2005 (Schönbeck et al, 2013), so both the nature of the secular trend and the factors driving it were clearly different in the two countries.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Fifty years of child height and weight in Japan and South Korea: Contrasting secular trend patterns analyzed by SITAR

Cole

Mori

2017

American J Hum Biol

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Objectives Japanese and South Koreans have traditionally been shorter than Europeans, but have recently become appreciably taller. The aim was to quantify the secular trend patterns in height and weight growth in the two countries over 50 years using the SITAR growth curve model. Methods Data on mean height and weight by sex in 1‐year age groups from 1 to 20 years were obtained by decade in South Korea (1965–2005) and Japan (1950–2010). The data were analyzed using SITAR (SuperImposition by Translation And Rotation), which estimates a mean curve and three adjustments–size, timing and intensity–reflecting how the individual surveys differ from the mean. A sensitivity analysis compared results for the Japanese data based on cohort as well as period. Results Growth patterns in the two countries changed dramatically over the study period, affecting not only height and weight but also developmental age, in that the growth period advanced in timing and shrank in duration. SITAR fitted the data well. The trends were larger in South Korea than Japan, and puberty timing in Japan stabilized by 1970. Most of the height increment seen in adults had already accrued by age 1.5 years, whereas the adult weight increment accrued throughout childhood. Conclusions The secular height trend in these countries represents increased growth in the long bones during infancy, so it can be viewed as the inverse of stunting. There are striking country differences in growth pattern, but they are not easily explained by differences in national income, diet or lifestyle.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fifty years of child height and weight in Japan and South Korea: Contrasting secular trend patterns analyzed by SITAR

Cole

Mori

2017

American J Hum Biol

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“…13 Therefore, it is to be expected that Dutch and UK faces differ dimensionally. 14,15 The differences identified here, however, include differences based on both shape and proportion, and some are contrary to the greater height of Dutch individuals.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Face shape differs in phylogenetically related populations

Hopman

Merks

Suttie³

et al. 2014

Eur J Hum Genet

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3D analysis of facial morphology has delineated facial phenotypes in many medical conditions and detected fine grained differences between typical and atypical patients to inform genotype-phenotype studies. Next-generation sequencing techniques have enabled extremely detailed genotype-phenotype correlative analysis. Such comparisons typically employ control groups matched for age, sex and ethnicity and the distinction between ethnic categories in genotype-phenotype studies has been widely debated. The phylogenetic tree based on genetic polymorphism studies divides the world population into nine subpopulations. Here we show statistically significant face shape differences between two European Caucasian populations of close phylogenetic and geographic proximity from the UK and The Netherlands. The average face shape differences between the Dutch and UK cohorts were visualised in dynamic morphs and signature heat maps, and quantified for their statistical significance using both conventional anthropometry and state of the art dense surface modelling techniques. Our results demonstrate significant differences between Dutch and UK face shape. Other studies have shown that genetic variants influence normal facial variation. Thus, face shape difference between populations could reflect underlying genetic difference. This should be taken into account in genotype-phenotype studies and we recommend that in those studies reference groups be established in the same population as the individuals who form the subject of the study.

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“…1991; Schonbeck et al. 2013); however, no such normative data currently exist for ocular biometry components or refractive error.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Axial length growth and the risk of developing myopia in European children

Tideman

Polling

Vingerling

et al. 2017

Acta Ophthalmologica

212

194

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PurposeTo generate percentile curves of axial length (AL) for European children, which can be used to estimate the risk of myopia in adulthood.MethodsA total of 12 386 participants from the population‐based studies Generation R (Dutch children measured at both 6 and 9 years of age; N = 6934), the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) (British children 15 years of age; N = 2495) and the Rotterdam Study III (RS‐III) (Dutch adults 57 years of age; N = 2957) contributed to this study. Axial length (AL) and corneal curvature data were available for all participants; objective cycloplegic refractive error was available only for the Dutch participants. We calculated a percentile score for each Dutch child at 6 and 9 years of age.ResultsMean (SD) AL was 22.36 (0.75) mm at 6 years, 23.10 (0.84) mm at 9 years, 23.41 (0.86) mm at 15 years and 23.67 (1.26) at adulthood. Axial length (AL) differences after the age of 15 occurred only in the upper 50%, with the highest difference within the 95th percentile and above. A total of 354 children showed accelerated axial growth and increased by more than 10 percentiles from age 6 to 9 years; 162 of these children (45.8%) were myopic at 9 years of age, compared to 4.8% (85/1781) for the children whose AL did not increase by more than 10 percentiles.ConclusionThis study provides normative values for AL that can be used to monitor eye growth in European children. These results can help clinicians detect excessive eye growth at an early age, thereby facilitating decision‐making with respect to interventions for preventing and/or controlling myopia.

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The world’s tallest nation has stopped growing taller: the height of Dutch children from 1955 to 2009

Cited by 215 publications

References 17 publications

Fifty years of child height and weight in Japan and South Korea: Contrasting secular trend patterns analyzed by SITAR

Fifty years of child height and weight in Japan and South Korea: Contrasting secular trend patterns analyzed by SITAR

Face shape differs in phylogenetically related populations

Axial length growth and the risk of developing myopia in European children

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